The Two Blokes Talking Tech podcast – Episode # 735 – Amazon’s Future plans, A smarter Alexa, Satellite Internet and more

Episode: TBTT #735 – Amazon’s Future plans, A smarter Alexa, Satellite Internet and more

Podcast: Two Blokes Talking Tech

Date: 4 June 2026

Hosts: Trevor Long & Stephen Fenech

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Recording from London — Hotel room setup, trip context

[00:00:00] Trevor Long: I mean, this is completely, completely within the ordinary realms of podcasting here, Stephen. Just don’t breathe in it.

[00:00:07] Stephen Fenech: We do our best.

[00:00:08] Trevor Long: We’re improvising here, ladies and gentlemen. We are improvising because that’s what tech guys do. We improvise when things happen. We improvise and we’re on the road. So sometimes it doesn’t all go perfectly. Stephen, what are your thoughts?

[00:00:22] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, stuff happens. You got to adapt to the conditions and that’s what we’re doing.

[00:00:29] Trevor Long: Thanks for joining me here in my hotel room too.

[00:00:31] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I’m happy to say your room’s smaller than mine.

[00:00:34] Trevor Long: It’s very rare.

[00:00:36] Stephen Fenech: I’m really pleased about that. I think that’s great. I’ve got a better room than Trevor.

[00:00:42] Trevor Long: When you say smaller, what are you talking, 30 centimeters, a meter?

[00:00:45] Stephen Fenech: Well, I’ve got a bit more room in my entry passage. So my bathroom goes off the entry. I’ve got just another wall where the bed is. My bathroom’s in there. Yeah, but it’s an entry that way. And there’s more room down there, down the hallway.

[00:01:02] Trevor Long: This is the second smallest hotel.

[00:01:04] Stephen Fenech: What’s that up there? That’s the roof.

[00:01:06] Trevor Long: The roof.

[00:01:06] Stephen Fenech: That’s the roofline. That’s it. That makes it even smaller than mine then, right?

[00:01:11] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:01:11] Stephen Fenech: I do overlook the courtyard though.

[00:01:13] Trevor Long: Easily the second smallest hotel I’ve ever been in. The smallest was in the Moxie in New York. The Moxie. The Moxie was the— at the end of the bed, it was room for a chair, but they, they didn’t have a desk. It was, it was up on the wall and it came down, so you like Oh, so you had to sit on the edge of the bed to use the desk? Yeah, pretty much, yeah. It was tiny.

[00:01:37] Stephen Fenech: How long ago was this?

[00:01:38] Trevor Long: It was a year and a half ago. Oh. Yeah, not that long ago. Okay. It was not an enticing thing. And I know—

[00:01:46] Stephen Fenech: Where was I there too? Or was this on your own?

[00:01:48] Trevor Long: I don’t think so. I feel like it was just me and Stig. It was on the Airbnb Uber trip. So it was Uber, Uber last year. Right. Yeah, May or June last year. So Egypt, yeah. And look, I know, ladies and gentlemen, This is first world problems.

[00:02:01] Stephen Fenech: First world problems. Yeah.

[00:02:02] Trevor Long: But please stop popping into the microphone, Steven. It’ll drive me insane all night.

[00:02:07] Stephen Fenech: I’m trying my best, mate.

[00:02:08] Trevor Long: Well, just don’t put it in front of you, mate.

[00:02:09] Stephen Fenech: I’m logging into WhatsApp on the phone.

[00:02:11] Trevor Long: We’re holding, ladies and gentlemen, we’re holding wireless microphones in front of us and it’s—

[00:02:15] Stephen Fenech: Like an influencer on Instagram.

[00:02:17] Trevor Long: Yeah. So closer, but like near your chin, Steven. Yeah, that’s right here. So I know it’s a first world problem, but the thing is when we travel and I know, Stephen, you spend most of your days just wandering around being a tourist, but my hotel room is my office. And mine too. And I— but like, I need space. Like, I want to put my stuff out, I want to sit at a desk, and this desk is tiny. It’s just, you know, from a working situation—

[00:02:43] Stephen Fenech: don’t they know who you are?

[00:02:44] Trevor Long: Not ideal.

[00:02:46] Stephen Fenech: Well, put it this way, did you tell them that you’re Trev Long from The Today Show?

[00:02:48] Trevor Long: Reception knows who I am.

[00:02:50] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I heard, I heard you’re a big red, red mark against your name.

[00:02:54] Trevor Long: Been some calls. There’s shower issues, and then there was a light issue which was resolved by a maintenance man coming in and showing me where the switch was.

[00:03:02] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you press the knobs, a button. Is that what he said? Idiot. The knobs, a button as well.

[00:03:05] Trevor Long: He obviously didn’t say that exactly, but it’s what he was inferring.

[00:03:08] Stephen Fenech: Did he call you sir and all that, or?

[00:03:10] Trevor Long: Yeah, he did.

[00:03:11] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:03:11] Trevor Long: And then the maid stole my breakfast bowl. Um, yeah, it’s just, it’s just a lot of little issues.

[00:03:18] Stephen Fenech: Mate, does this— when you travel with your family, are you this high maintenance with your family?

[00:03:22] Trevor Long: Not at all, because I’m on holidays.

[00:03:23] Stephen Fenech: Because you, because you’re in control of everything.

[00:03:25] Trevor Long: No, but also I’m on holidays. I don’t give a rats.

[00:03:27] Stephen Fenech: Okay, all right. So if you’re— so you’re asleep on the foldout for the holiday, not a work trip, you’d be fine. Oh, the bathroom would have been a massive issue, and the light would have been an issue too, mate.

[00:03:38] Trevor Long: Yeah, you’re right, 100%.

[00:03:39] Stephen Fenech: You can’t turn off grumpiness, mate. That’s how you are. That’s how you roll.

[00:03:44] Trevor Long: Well, you weren’t here when we checked in, but when we checked in, um, I don’t know what happened to get me offside instantly. You know what it was? Because the steps up into reception, and so like you’re lugging your bag in there, and I’m like, what is happening here?

[00:03:57] Stephen Fenech: And for a 20-hour, 24-hour flight, like we’ve been We’ve been traveling.

[00:04:01] Trevor Long: The lady goes, “How’s your day been?” I went, “Listen, I’ve been on a plane for 30 hours, right? So just leave me alone.” Anyway, so the bloke that’s walking us up to the room’s taking over and we’re in the lift and he goes, he says something along the lines of, “Are you having a bad day? You seem angry.” And I thought to myself, “You’re a very perceptive young man.” Trevor Long, how are you? Welcome. We haven’t met, ask around.

[00:04:29] Stephen Fenech: There you go.

[00:04:31] Trevor Long: I’ve got references if you need them.

[00:04:33] Stephen Fenech: My, uh, I arrived— you arrived sort of during the day, did you? Yeah, I arrived like late at night. I got in at like 9:30. I was checking in.

[00:04:41] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:04:42] Stephen Fenech: And, um, I had— I’ve got— I didn’t check any luggage, you know. I’ve just got my carry-on and a backpack. Yeah. And he kept saying, can I take your bag? I said, no, mate, I’m good. Just take me to the room. You know, I had to walk through the courtyard again thinking, where are you taking me?

[00:04:54] Trevor Long: Yeah, I know, it was weird.

[00:04:55] Stephen Fenech: And he kept asking me. I said, mate, don’t worry about the bag, I’m fine. Just show me the room. I just— let’s get there. Anyway, anyway, I was nowhere near as grumpy as you though.

[00:05:06] Trevor Long: We haven’t even mentioned we’re in London here as guests of Amazon. We’ll talk about that shortly. But, um, yeah, Stephen’s done plenty of kilometers wandering around the city.

[00:05:14] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, did a bit of shopping today too.

[00:05:15] Trevor Long: It was good. Yeah, you bought, you bought some DVDs? Yeah, I did. Yeah, it was 4K.

[00:05:20] Stephen Fenech: HMV is still pumping here. Amazing.

[00:05:23] Trevor Long: Like you said, 3-level store.

[00:05:26] Stephen Fenech: One level was all disc, all movies, all physical media, physical media. Because what’s happened to me, or to all disc collectors, is the, uh, the 20th Century Fox have stopped making physical media. So any recent 20th Century Fox films, you can’t buy them, you can only watch them on Disney Plus. And so I wanted the 4K version so that they sell them here, bigger market. They don’t do us, too small a market, right? So yeah, I got a few titles that 20th Century Fox that weren’t available in Australia. I could have bought them online, would have cost me 3 times as much.

[00:06:00] Trevor Long: Had a great idea. I wonder if I the microphone works just on your glasses. Hang on my glasses.

[00:06:05] Stephen Fenech: No, it doesn’t, mate.

[00:06:06] Trevor Long: Good. Disappointing.

[00:06:08] Stephen Fenech: So yeah, it was a good day, and they had a Disney— Disney Store across the road had a really cool Star Wars section too. If I was living in— if that was in Australia, I would have done a lot of damage. There was a lot of cool gear in there that I would have bought.

[00:06:20] Trevor Long: As if you didn’t do damage here.

[00:06:21] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but no, but I’ve got no room to put in my bag. That’s the thing. I’ve got all carry-on stuff.

[00:06:26] Trevor Long: I don’t have a check-in bag. Sound of Music in 4K, how much better? Hello?

[00:06:29] Stephen Fenech: Like, well, 4 times better. 4 times better than HD. I don’t know, that’s a beloved movie. I love that.

[00:06:36] Trevor Long: How do they— was it—

[00:06:37] Stephen Fenech: I mean, I know they go back to the original print and they go to the original upscale, they print, they go to the original print and then upscale. And, uh, yeah, apparently it’s, it’s in time for the 60th anniversary was released because there’s a lot of money involved in doing that. A lot of fans of the movie. That’s why it’s, it’s the movie that inspired our movie podcast.

[00:06:56] Trevor Long: It is, absolutely. And then I shout out to Arnie Shell, who you refer— you, you came to me straight away and said you’ll want to see this. He said to me, Aunty Cheryl’s going to want to know this. It’s available in 4K. I said, listen, she can’t see bugger all. I’m not even sure she knows what’s happening on the screen.

[00:07:11] Stephen Fenech: But she’ll say, wow, they’re much clearer.

[00:07:13] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:07:14] Stephen Fenech: What’s happening? I can see the kids’ faces.

[00:07:16] Trevor Long: She’ll just say, turn it up. That’s all she wants is to turn it up. All right. Well, without any further ado, welcome to Two Blokes Talking Tech. Not a bad price.

[00:07:27] VOICE OVER: With Trevor Long from eftm.com.

[00:07:29] Stephen Fenech: Really handy device.

[00:07:31] VOICE OVER: And Steven Fenech from techguide.com.au.

[00:07:34] Trevor Long: .au. Episode 735 of Two Blokes Talking Tech, uh, on handheld microphones. So apologize for any quality issues you hear throughout the show, but we’re doing our best to keep the dream alive. Thanks to the great people at Arlo Home Security Needs, they’ve got you covered, and Netgear for your home Wi-Fi and security needs as well, um, based on your home network. We’ll tell you about them shortly, and we’d appreciate you supporting them as they support us. But we are here as guests of Amazon in, uh, London town Sunny, sunny London. Sunny for 2 hours and 10 minutes. Yeah.

[00:08:05] Stephen Fenech: And then the heatwave ended the second my plane’s wheels hit the tarmac.

[00:08:09] Trevor Long: Yeah, it was over. And then it’s pouring and then it’s cloudy. But we are here at the time of year, like coming into the peak of their summer and it’s daylight from 4 a.m. until 10 p.m. Like, it’s unbelievable. You wake up in the morning, you go, Jesus Christ, I slept through my alarm. Yeah. You’re like, no, no, it’s 4:30. What’s going on? It’s wild.

[00:08:30] Stephen Fenech: Crazy.

Amazon Delivering the Future — Alexa Plus & AI assistant upgrade

[00:08:31] Trevor Long: So we’re here with Amazon for their Delivering the Future conference, let’s call it. And it’s a fascinating one because it is— let’s be honest and let’s be absolutely dead set honest upfront here. There’s not a lot of directly relevant Australian announcements that are made, but what it is, a little bit of kind of crystal balling, a little bit of, you know, innovation talk and critically things that we can, we can get a sense of. Now, I think the big one that I was most excited about was expansion of Alexa Plus. Yes. Alexa Plus. You’ve got your Echo speaker with Alexa. You can ask Alexa questions and all those kind of things. And Alexa’s always been pretty good. In fact, I think we both agree Alexa’s the number one smart home assistant.

[00:09:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, we’re an Alexa household.

[00:09:15] Trevor Long: Beats out Google just because I think it’s a bit, bit more diverse. And I think it’s a bit— and also you can’t buy Googles anymore. Like, they’ve stopped making them. They’ve stopped selling them in Australia. I’m sure there’s new ones to come, but they’ve basically given up on Australia for a couple of years. So you’ve got your— so many Echo products and there’s so many from the little cheapo ones up to the big screen screens and all that kind of stuff. And so what— whatever you’ve been able to do with Alexa, what you’ve not been able to do is what we now know as large language model AI conversations like you would have with ChatGPT as a voice agent and stuff like that. So Alexa Plus is essentially their large language model AI assistant, which can obviously still do all the things that your smart home connected Alexa can do, like turn on lights, start timers, and all those things, but when you have a conversation about, you know, what’s the capital of a country or what’s the whatever, you could dig deeper into that and have a more conversational approach to remember the relevance of what you’re asking it. Yeah, that kind of stuff. So, and it’s going to be a subscription-based model. So basically if you’re a Prime member, you’ll be able to get— you’ll get Alexa Plus.

[00:10:19] Stephen Fenech: Tied everything together, haven’t they?

[00:10:20] Trevor Long: Really?

[00:10:21] Stephen Fenech: Wow. See, Prime gets you delivery too.

[00:10:23] Trevor Long: Prime gets you fast delivery, it gets you the video, gets you music, and now it gets you Alexa Plus. It’s actually probably the best value subscription on the market. I think it’s under—

[00:10:33] Stephen Fenech: agree 100%—

[00:10:34] Trevor Long: underpromoted in that sense. So bad news, we don’t have a date for its availability in Australia. The Alexa Plus.

[00:10:41] Stephen Fenech: But they did say that, like, the news here is I think it’s releasing in France.

[00:10:45] Trevor Long: Yeah, that’s the news.

[00:10:46] Stephen Fenech: But the other, the last paragraph of the press release said 10 additional countries in 2027.

[00:10:52] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:10:53] Stephen Fenech: And I discreetly asked our Amazon representative here, I said, are we safe to assume that Australia could be one of those countries? Which went, Yeah, I think so. She didn’t say no, no, no. Didn’t say yes either. But no, you’d be a safe bet to think that we’d be next cab off the rank. So in 12 months we could have this within 12 months. I think it could be early, early ’27.

[00:11:15] Trevor Long: Yeah, but it’s still, it’s still weird because like, what is the scalability problem that it’s not been turned on? Because we know they know the language, right? They’ve got the voice.

[00:11:23] Stephen Fenech: Or is it our accents?

[00:11:25] Trevor Long: No, but that’s already been done.

[00:11:26] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but, but English in an American accent is different to—

[00:11:29] Trevor Long: Yes, but Alexa’s already got Australia. So yeah, true, true. So that’s done.

[00:11:33] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Although it needs additional processing.

[00:11:36] Trevor Long: And I think what it is is that you continually need to phase up as you scale up your data centers and things like that. Yeah. Because you’re getting so much more compute, as you just mentioned. Yeah. That essentially as soon as you onboard a country, you’re talking about millions of requests per day, per hour, per minute that you need to have the compute power Well, and access to the resources too.

[00:12:00] Stephen Fenech: Like they’re building data centres in Australia, we found out too. So they’re, they’re and building it with them sustainably too. Apparently they’re the biggest, you know, biggest contributor to the renewable energy in Australia.

[00:12:12] Trevor Long: That’s right.

[00:12:13] Stephen Fenech: So that’s going to handle all those extra load for these, these agentic, more detailed inquiries. I remember writing about this for the first time a little while back and and it can, it can be that agent for you and sort of make like you say, you say you need to repair your dishwasher or get your quotes and stuff like that. Is that still part of the plan?

[00:12:34] Trevor Long: I mean, that in theory. Yeah, but in theory, communism works. But you know, the theory is strong on these things. How much of it gets ticked off and turned on is, is yet to be seen. But I, I’m all in favour of a smarter home assistant because we’re now at a point where we expect more from asking a computer a question. So just take the word AI out of life, right? Yeah. And just go, what we’ve known up until now was you used to be able to ask a computer a question, then you could speak to these things in your house and turn off and on lights, right? And ask questions, get jokes and stuff. But we’ve all, in the last 2 and a half years, we’ve come so far with AI that we expect more of computers in terms of how they answer us.

[00:13:15] Stephen Fenech: And so that’s, but also, you know, have you noticed a lot of people like, AI is useful, but AI has become the new search engine. It’s now, we want your opinion, or rather than— and because it’s more capable, people are using it. And Alexa Plus will be a prime candidate here.

[00:13:32] Trevor Long: Someone we were with, and, uh, we were asking a question, something you would normally have just Googled to get the answer, straight to ChatGPT or Claude or whatever. Yeah, do you know what I mean?

[00:13:42] Stephen Fenech: People are getting an opinion. You’re not getting a result, you’re getting an opinion as well.

[00:13:45] Trevor Long: Well, I think a lot of the time it is— it’s not opinion, it’s just, I want like we’ve gone from a place where you would ask Google for an answer and then go to the pages it suggested to find. Yeah, the base to Google then giving you a summary and then Google adding AI. And so because Google’s put AI at the top of search, they’ve basically said to everyone, hey, we’re just going to give you AI. So everyone is— everyone’s gone, well, I’m using AI in another app. Yeah, that’s the challenge that Google’s created is that they’re pushing people to AI. In some cases it might be Gemini, but in other cases it’s bloody Claude or ChatGPT.

[00:14:20] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, okay. But again, it’s a whole other story about how the, they, they crawl the web for all these, these details and take all the credit. They take the credit for it. We miss out on the click. Yeah, they get the credit. That’s a problem across the board, I guess. Yeah. Should we talk about some other, uh, a new— well, let’s talk about Amazon LEO because that’s, that’s coming to Australia soon this year. I feel like Australia is among the first, if not the first country in the world to get it because I understand they launched the satellites from the South Pole upwards.

Amazon LEO — Satellite internet, Starlink competitor, Australia rollout

[00:14:49] Trevor Long: Upwards, yeah.

[00:14:49] Stephen Fenech: So Australia is right down there in the, in the, right in the clouds.

[00:14:52] Trevor Long: Literally to the point where when they did the deal with the NBN, they said that Tasmania would be the first case, like that’s going to be where they tested first. Now I don’t know their rollout is going as quickly as they hoped.

[00:15:02] Stephen Fenech: I understand there’s a bit of a delay, but it’ll still be this year, but not— when I wrote the— I remember last August was when they announced it, yeah, and they said it’d be June 26th, which is now, but I don’t think they’re quite ready, but not far off. So you expect to see— and To be clear, this is the direct competitor to Starlink, and the NBN is like— no doubt Starlink would have pitched the NBN too, surely, wouldn’t they, to get that business or not?

[00:15:28] Trevor Long: Oh yeah, you know, they would have bid for it.

[00:15:29] Stephen Fenech: And then LEO, well, it was called Project Kuiper back in the day. Now it’s called LEO, which is short for low Earth orbit, which is how the satellites can provide such a faster result because the, the current Skymaster, they’re high Earth orbit.

[00:15:46] Trevor Long: So that’s why they’re geostationary.

[00:15:48] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. And these ones are low Earth orbit. So the data getting up and down is faster. Yes. And hence the— like, I had Starlink on the plane. I flew Emirates via Dubai, Sydney to Dubai, 777, Starlink on board. I did a speed test. I got 480 megabits per second down. Download speed?

[00:16:10] Trevor Long: Well, get this, on the plane. So on Sunday before we left, like literally before I had— we were— we had to go to the school for a choir rehearsal, right? And Amanda wanted to film it all and make a video for the school. And I said, I’ll come and help. But this choir rehearsal was going to end at 4, and I had to be on a car to the airport at 4:30, right? So this was— so we filmed all this stuff, right? And so I said to Amanda and Harry, just upload it to Dropbox. So at Qatar, I downloaded it all from the Dropbox, 32 gigs weeks. Then while I was on the Qatar to London flight, I edited the video, a 4-minute video. I exported it as like low def and WhatsApp’d it to Amanda. She says it’s good. And then I exported as 1080, uploaded it to Dropbox. Yeah. Amanda goes, very hard to share Dropbox links with people that don’t know what Dropbox is. I said, I’ll put it on YouTube as an unlisted so people— oh yeah. So I might—

[00:17:00] Stephen Fenech: you do all that on the plane?

[00:17:00] Trevor Long: All of that on a plane? Yeah, right. Yeah. So the power of low Earth orbit satellites is unbelievable. Yeah. The, the, the original plan when I met with Amazon, I’ll tell you what date it was. It was in 2023. I went to Seattle. They said they have booked 77 rocket launches to deploy 3,300 satellites with, with sort of 90% of their constellation to be deployed by 2029. So You know, that’s, that’s a pretty, pretty big rollout. Now, Starlink, I think at this point have like 9,000 satellites launched right there. They’ve got coverage, right? But they’re also now relaunching a second generation, third generation of satellite too. So they’re, they’re lengths ahead. But I find this fascinating, right? Because they’re here, here in London, they’re talking about LEO and the future of it in Europe and all that kind of stuff, right? In the end, this business, this LEO business is huge for Amazon. Huge. And you look at Starlink or SpaceX’s IPO this week, they’re a $1.5 trillion company now, right? This is the best thing that they have in terms of competition. It’s the only thing they have in terms of— there are other low Earth orbit satellites, but none that are truly not to the scale, consumer-focused, right?

[00:18:16] Stephen Fenech: But to the scale.

[00:18:17] Trevor Long: And it’s— I don’t want to sidetrack us, but It’s like when we talk about EV charging on the EV podcast, right? And I’ve said a million times, if someone had $1 billion, you just roll out a big charging network, right? Yeah, but you can’t. It’s too expensive. This is essentially Jeff Bezos going, just spend whatever you need to, to build the network out and build it and they will come, right? Of course. So you bring satellite internet to crazy number of places, regional. And Australia is one of the biggest markets for this because we are so remote.

[00:18:44] Stephen Fenech: We are the best country for this. This because we’re a big country and like sparsely populated in much of the country. So there’s no cellular coverage. So we’re perfect candidates for this. And we already know Telstra actually this week celebrating one year of messaging by satellite. Yeah. So I think other companies like Optus and Vodafone have done deals with Starlink as well. So will Amazon— is that part of their business plan to maybe try to get them across?

[00:19:12] Trevor Long: Direct-to-cell is not part of their plan.

[00:19:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. So this is via the NBN and so through third-party providers.

[00:19:18] Trevor Long: Well, no. So Leo in Australia. So it’s really fascinating as I understand it, and I can’t really talk to the specifics, but as I understand it, there are 300,000 homes. So there’s 11 million properties in Australia, right?

[00:19:30] Stephen Fenech: Homes.

[00:19:31] Trevor Long: 300,000 of them are designated by the NBN as being satellite serviced. Okay. So that means you can’t get certainly fiber, you can’t get hybrid fiber coaxial, and you can’t get fixed wireless, the 4G, 5G, right? So there’s 300,000 homes that are satellite determined, and those 300,000 homes, if they want NBN, will get it from a certain point in time, they’ll get it from LEO, right?

[00:19:56] VOICE OVER: Yeah.

[00:19:56] Trevor Long: But Amazon are allowed to sell LEO as a satellite internet service to every other home in Australia. Okay. So I believe What I believe is subsidised version through the NBN. No, no, no. The NBN is only to those 300,000 homes. Yeah, but I believe that those 300,000 homes will essentially, if they, if they try to get LEO, they’ll just be pushed to the NBN. But every other house or every other consumer will be able to go, you know what? So my brother with a property in Young or Leeton can go, you know what, this fixed wireless is good, but it’s not great. So I’m going to get Starlink and he’ll go, hang on a minute. Leo’s cheaper potentially, right? It might be cheaper, but that service, direct-to-consumer, one-to-one relationship, has nothing to do with the NBN at all. Okay. It’s a pure— it’ll be Starlink competitor.

[00:20:47] Stephen Fenech: And if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you get a discount. Maybe they’ll tie you in there too.

[00:20:51] Trevor Long: Maybe, maybe. But see, they’ve got to remember, and the thing about Amazon Leo is there’s three size dishes. Yep. There’s a small one about the size of a big CD case, but smaller than a vinyl album, if you think. Then there’s one that’s kind of traditionally more like your Starlink size, you know, big kind of portfolio briefcase size. I understand that the small one will be like 100 meg speeds. The briefcase size one will be like 400 meg speeds. And then there’s a huge one, huge being suitcase size, which will be for commercial opportunities, which would be like gigabit. Wow. So it’s pretty— it’s a pretty amazing service. Incredible.

[00:21:26] Stephen Fenech: So, you know what, that’s— competition is a good thing. Starlink V Leo.

Amazon shopping — High return rate badging, robots & delivery innovations

[00:21:31] Trevor Long: Let’s, let’s talk Amazon. What the Amazon everyone knows, which is Amazon parcel deliveries and shopping. Yeah, I find this one fascinating. It is such a little tidbit, but I still love it. On the Amazon website, something I’ve not ever noticed is a thing called low return rate badging. So if you’re on a product, it might have a badge on that says low return rate, which is your way of knowing Do you know what?

[00:21:56] Stephen Fenech: A lot of people bought this, they’re happy with it.

[00:21:58] Trevor Long: But you know, so few people have returned it. But well, there’s a new badge coming called high return rate. Whoa. Now imagine being a, you know, an Amazon retailer that gets that badge put against you. There’ll be filthy retailers.

[00:22:09] Stephen Fenech: Well, obviously the game, the aim here is for them to not get that. So they’ve got to make sure their products are better. Knowing, knowing that that badge could be on one of their products, it will make them think, well, geez, we need to lift our game here.

[00:22:21] Trevor Long: Yeah. So I think that’s cool. I like that. I like that as a really simple, pretty transparent. And I know there’s already reviews, but you know, they’re saying what they’re saying, right? They’re saying we’ve got reviews that gives you a sense of what people think. Yeah, but what we now want you to know is what is it like to people to own. Yeah. And they’re saying, listen, this thing gets returned more than most other things. And that’s something you should know before you buy it, because essentially think about it as a business. You’re like, they, they essentially cover the cost because when you return something, you just take it to the local post office or chemist, whatever it is in your area that’s hooked up. And it’s a cost from that point on, from you logging on and going, I want to take this back. It’s a cost to Amazon. Yeah.

[00:23:00] Stephen Fenech: To bring it back because free postage, you just drop it off.

[00:23:03] Trevor Long: Oh yeah. Yeah. So what they’re doing is eliminate—

[00:23:06] Stephen Fenech: it’s in their best interest to not have that.

[00:23:07] Trevor Long: Spot on.

[00:23:08] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s smart. That’s smart.

[00:23:10] Trevor Long: I really like that. It’s so simple. I love it.

[00:23:13] Stephen Fenech: Excellent. What about— well, you know, you don’t come to these Amazon tech events and not see, hear about robots. Yeah, robots again going to be front and center here. And I know a lot of people also think, well, hang on, they’re replacing everyone with robots. But that’s not exactly the case, is it? They’re creating a lot of jobs here. Like the press releases that are obviously meant for the European press and the UK, they’re talking like hundreds of thousands of jobs create— job creations.

[00:23:42] Trevor Long: Well, the boss of Amazon UK said to us this week, he said there’s 75,000 people employed by Amazon in the UK.

[00:23:50] Stephen Fenech: There you go.

[00:23:50] Trevor Long: I mean, what are we talking about here, folks? Anyone that’s been to the robot fulfillment center in Western Sydney knows— and you can do tours, by the way— um, knows that there are staff everywhere. There are.

[00:24:01] Stephen Fenech: It’s busy. But the, uh, the robots, they’ve got their next generation Proteus which is their— this is kind of the AI-backed, sort of can follow the natural language commands and actually take on more tasks. So before they were limited pretty much to certain areas of the business, but now associates can actually ask them to do various things and they sort of— their level of actions is now being expanded.

[00:24:29] VOICE OVER: Yeah.

[00:24:30] Stephen Fenech: They’ve also announced Vulcan, which is the first robot with a sense of touch. So, uh, it can handle like finer items and smaller items, right?

[00:24:43] Trevor Long: So basically what that means is a robot with a— with the ability to clamp something might have normally clamped it, not given concern to how hard it clamped it, but now because it knows it’s touched it, it can be more gentle. It’s funny, we’re talking about robots with this.

[00:24:59] Stephen Fenech: Good to be more gentle. But yeah, that’s, this is, that’s another one of many more announcements. But the other is the delivery itself. And one of the, one of the, one of the releases is about same-day delivery for fresh groceries. Now, this isn’t available for Australia, but what happens in these cases, they launch them in really big cities. So the UK, Japan, US. Big cities and they say, well, if we can get it to work here, then it’s a piece of cake when it comes to smaller places like Australia.

[00:25:31] Trevor Long: Well, same-day deliveries of fresh groceries are now live in parts of Tokyo and 2,300 US cities. Yeah. And so if they’re expanding it across more parts of Japan and across the UK, you can only assume that that has some potential to come to Australia as well. But what is Australia, a different market though?

[00:25:52] Stephen Fenech: Well, because they just announced, remember, they’re associated with Harris Farm. So that’s having same-day delivery of groceries, like especially ordering fruit and veggies and stuff. You want them straight away, don’t you?

[00:26:02] Trevor Long: Yeah. But do you think, is Australia, and I haven’t really paid any attention to other markets, but is Australia already too mature in the grocery market?

[00:26:14] Stephen Fenech: I guess because Coles and Woolies, yeah, they deliver. Yeah, yeah, that’s pretty popular.

[00:26:18] Trevor Long: There’s not a day you don’t see 3 of those trucks.

[00:26:21] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but Harris Farm, mate, this is Harris Farm. It’s a new, a different chain of—

[00:26:25] Trevor Long: But I’m saying the full-on same-day grocery stuff.

[00:26:29] Stephen Fenech: Well, I’ll use my brother Michael. He never goes to the supermarket. He gets all his stuff delivered all the time. Yeah, we go to the market.

[00:26:36] Trevor Long: We have a supermarket. No, we now we’re a bit more of a direct-to-boot because Amanda will order online but then go pick it up because if there’s any anything missing or anything, you’re at the shop, you can pick it up. Right. Okay. Also, she’s, she’d prefer to pick the fruit and get that from the gross fruit, fruit stand as opposed to from Woolies.

[00:26:54] Stephen Fenech: Sure.

[00:26:54] Trevor Long: But I just don’t know whether that one’s bound for Australia given how mature our grocery delivery market already is.

[00:27:01] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:27:02] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:27:03] Stephen Fenech: And what about the new delivery vehicles? They know already. Well, before we talk about that, on the sustainability side, we know that there’s more than 50,000 electric delivery 3 vans now operating globally, which is— that’s a step in the right direction, but that’s going to increase. But there’s now new micro mobility solutions. So we’re talking electric mopeds, electric cargo bikes, even some countries, some cities deliver on foot. Like they go—

[00:27:33] Trevor Long: I’m talking about New York.

[00:27:34] Stephen Fenech: New York. They just get a big backpack and deliver on foot. Yeah.

[00:27:38] Trevor Long: Big backpack.

[00:27:38] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. I love the idea of a trolley.

[00:27:41] Trevor Long: I hope you’re not buying a 24-pack of Diet Coke. Some fool like the one you’re gonna carry. One of the times I did flex driving, one of the last orders was in a bloody apartment block, and it was just the last 2 big boxes in my car, and it was like 2 big boxes of clearly, you know, cans of drink. And it’s like, dude, this is heavy. Schlep it down the driveway into the apartment block.

[00:28:05] Stephen Fenech: Oh well, that’s what’s involved, mate. Yeah, that’s what happens.

Amazon Music & TV — Sekou, Clarkson’s Farm, MGM

[00:28:10] Trevor Long: I mean, it’s kind of— it’s, it’s remarkable really to think about the scale of what Amazon is. And just a couple of days here with them, all those things we’ve talked about are interesting and fascinating. But then we also had some time on the first night with them just hearing about how they do TV and music. Yeah, and it’s funny because you think about music, you probably We think Apple, Apple and Spotify, but Amazon Music especially.

[00:28:35] Stephen Fenech: They’re big.

[00:28:36] Trevor Long: Again, if you’re an Amazon Prime member because of the delivery, you get it free, dude. And you’re paying for Spotify. What are you doing?

[00:28:43] Stephen Fenech: Exactly.

[00:28:43] Trevor Long: I know it’s part of your subscription.

[00:28:45] Stephen Fenech: And so the people we were listening to, there was a woman who was sort of like artist development. So she was here helping support artists as they’re starting out and helping them get bigger. And then the other guy on the stage is all about the non-scripted TV.

[00:28:58] Trevor Long: TV. Like, he was basically in charge of Clarkson’s Farm. Yeah. And what was the name of the young bloke that sang?

[00:29:03] Stephen Fenech: Oh mate, you’re testing me now. Was it Q2 or something like that?

[00:29:08] Trevor Long: Oh geez. Yeah, I wonder. Well, Stig posted something on Instagram. I wonder if he tagged him because that’s the kind of thing Stig would do.

[00:29:17] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but he was the, the singer came on stage, was really meek and mild and really humble, and then see when he started CQ.

[00:29:27] Trevor Long: Okay, when he started singing, boy, what a set of pipes he had on him. Spelled S-E-K-O-U.

[00:29:33] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:29:34] Trevor Long: Oh, oops, I’ve screenshot of you. Yeah, CQ, as in seek you. Hey, better man. He sang that song? Yeah, this is the guy.

[00:29:46] Stephen Fenech: That’s his stuff.

[00:29:47] Trevor Long: I mean, and by the way, this bloke, when he got up to talk, just placid.

[00:29:51] Stephen Fenech: Yes, I just said that.

[00:29:53] Trevor Long: And this really—

[00:29:54] Stephen Fenech: boom, meek and mild. And it was bang. Well, he mentioned, he goes, when I’m on stage, I feel like a different person. And it sounded like a different person.

[00:30:02] Trevor Long: I’ll be adding that to a playlist. I want to have a listen to those properly. Me too. He was brilliant.

[00:30:06] Stephen Fenech: When he becomes massive, I’m going to say we saw him when he was just starting out.

[00:30:09] Trevor Long: But yeah, I feel like they are underrated. And we’re not saying this because we’re here as guests of them. I’m just— it’s— this is what happens on these trips is we get exposed to things things that we would not normally be. Yeah. And Apple play a very smart game. They do roll out— like, they had Zane Lowe at Vivid, and so they rolled him out on the Today Show. He did a bunch of radio stuff. And so they’re able to push that content.

[00:30:31] Stephen Fenech: Amazon don’t push it as hard as Apple. No, they’ve got probably more to push than Apple does. They probably do. So, well, yeah, of course.

[00:30:38] Trevor Long: Well, you talk about like MGM Studios.

[00:30:39] Stephen Fenech: MGM Studios, that’s, that’s an Amazon property now, and they hold the rights to the Bond films.

[00:30:44] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:30:44] Stephen Fenech: So that’s— there’s all those. So there’s a full production also. Apple TV does that too.

[00:30:50] Trevor Long: But yes, but see, that’s my point is everyone knows Apple TV does that, whereas most people wouldn’t associate Amazon with TVs or movies.

[00:30:56] Stephen Fenech: You gotta remember too, Amazon has Kindle, so they’re all books.

[00:31:01] Trevor Long: Audible.

[00:31:01] Stephen Fenech: Audible audiobooks. So they’ve got Prime, which is movies, TV shows.

[00:31:06] Trevor Long: Listen, did you get that bloke’s email address? Because we should pitch an unscripted TV show.

[00:31:10] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I’ve got his name.

[00:31:12] Trevor Long: Two blokes will pitch you. What’s the TV show idea?

[00:31:16] Stephen Fenech: I think the TV show would be an Office-style mockumentary about traveling tech journalists.

[00:31:23] Trevor Long: I love it. I’m all in.

[00:31:26] Stephen Fenech: And the character player, Trevor, you got the angry, egotistic, angry, egotistic TV guy. And then the other guy was easygoing. Yeah. Former footballer. Good look. Really good looking bloke.

[00:31:40] Trevor Long: And then there’s the one that everyone hates. And we’d give him a weird—

[00:31:44] Stephen Fenech: we’d call him something random like David, you know, just, um, and then, yeah, and then we’d all be sort of chatting behind their back about how much they’re really idiots. And he’s on this trip, oh my God.

[00:31:59] Trevor Long: You’d see us land at the airport and you get in the car and you’re like, oh man, they’ve got more influences here, the Bludgers.

[00:32:06] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mate, I’d watch that.

[00:32:07] Trevor Long: I don’t know that I would.

[00:32:08] Stephen Fenech: I’d watch it. I’d help write it.

[00:32:12] Trevor Long: I don’t know, it’s a funny thing because we do live some strange lives. Oh, you said to me, um, something about a TV show. I said Stig’s always had the idea that the TV show is basically a— it’s called The Junket.

[00:32:23] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:32:23] Trevor Long: And it’s a behind the scenes of what happens on these trips, right? And I said, but the problem is there’s one journo blowing up about his shower and, um, his lights aren’t working. His most most of the good stuff is not the stuff that the, the brands would want covered.

[00:32:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you know, that’s, that’s all part of the drama, all part of the, of the, uh, the show.

[00:32:46] Trevor Long: I think you’d be uninvited from a lot of things.

[00:32:48] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, that’d be, that’d be one storyline. Like, oh no, I can’t say that.

[00:32:53] Trevor Long: Next time, then the show doesn’t exist.

[00:32:55] Stephen Fenech: No, but I mean within the show, within the show. But you wouldn’t be talking about real companies. It’d be fictitious companies.

[00:33:01] Trevor Long: So you’re talking about the Office-style mockumentary?

[00:33:03] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it wouldn’t have it like— you wouldn’t call a company Apple, call them Pear or call them Apricot or something.

[00:33:08] Trevor Long: So it’s utopia for tech journalists.

[00:33:10] Stephen Fenech: That’s right. Yeah, I’d watch that. We should put a one-pager together for him and see what happens.

[00:33:17] Trevor Long: Well, you’ve got the Unscripted guy’s number. Yeah, look him up.

[00:33:20] Stephen Fenech: I’ve got his, uh, I’ll get his deets.

[00:33:22] Trevor Long: Uh, you can read all the details of what Amazon’s been talking about here in London and delivering the future events at techguide.com.au and aftm.com. And if anything additional comes out while we’re here, we’ll let you know.

[00:33:35] VOICE OVER: Everything about tech you never wanted to know. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

Sponsor — Netgear Nighthawk M7

[00:33:42] Trevor Long: And we do it all thanks to the good people at Netgear, netgear.com.au. If you need your networking, they’ve got you covered, especially when you’re traveling. So I land here, I’ve got my Nighthawk 5G M7 wireless router, mobile router, and it’s about the size of a, you know, Pro Max smartphone, bit thicker. And I plugged it into USB-C, charged it up, paired it with my device using the Netgear app. And within 5 minutes I’d purchased a local SIM card which was downloaded via my phone onto the Nighthawk M7. So this is an eSIM anywhere you go in the world, about 100 countries or something like that. But the other cool thing about this device, and I use this when I travel with the family, right? So when I go with the family to America later this year, I can take the Nighthawk M7 with me. Yes, I can buy a local SIM card so that while we’re at a cafe or at the Dodgers game or whatever it might be, we can all use the same Wi-Fi network that we’ve been using for the whole 2 weeks to get internet. But when we’re at the hotel, you don’t want to waste your, your, your 5G, you know, eSIM data when there’s hotel Wi-Fi. But what you do is you connect the Nighthawk M7 to the hotel Wi-Fi and it’s then shared via your normal Wi-Fi network. So all my kids can just connect to what’s called EFTM M7 for the whole trip, and it doesn’t matter to them whether we’re on the hotel Wi-Fi or the 5G. They’ve just got internet, and that’s really all that matters is have you got connection. Netgear have got you covered at home or on the go with the Nighthawk M7, and you can read more about it and check it out at netgear.com.au.

[00:35:17] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long. And Steven Fenech.

Laser portable monitors — Affordable new pricing

[00:35:23] Trevor Long: All right, Steven. Big news from Chris and Ronnie Briskett. Yep.

[00:35:28] Stephen Fenech: Laser. Laser.

[00:35:29] Trevor Long: Laser have gone super affordable. This is the— this is a very competitive space, which I think we would acknowledge has been around for a very long time, but has probably been popularized by our mates at Espresso with their high quality, high definition, super thin, super light. Portable monitors. I’ve got one with me, it’s in my yellow bag at all times, right? But every other brand is now doing this, from small brands to big brands. And Laser have a range of these products, and they have just absolutely slashed the prices on these things. So you’re talking now under $100 for a portable additional monitor for your laptop or computer, right there from Laser. It’s bloody good value.

[00:36:12] Stephen Fenech: But you know what I like about their approach here? Like Espresso’s approach was productivity and work and doing stuff on the go. Yeah, Laser, that’s partly their approach as well. But, you know, they’re marketing this to be, you know, if you’re a gamer, you can sort of plug your console into this thing. If you’ve got the kids in the car, you can use this as their little entertainment screen to connect to their computers or to their phones and things like that. So it has all the benefits and can be used in the same way you’d use other brands. So whether you want to be productive or working or streaming, gaming. This, this ticks all the boxes. And like Espresso, there’s a single cable connection and it draws its power from the source. So whatever you’re watching, say if it’s connected to your laptop, the laptop is powering that screen as well. Yes. So that’s no need to carry any adapters.

[00:37:03] Trevor Long: No, it’s literally just you carry the, you carry this flat little box as long as, as well as one monitor. Now there’s three versions, a 14-inch portable monitor has gone down from $149 down to $99. The 15.6-inch without touchscreen is now $129. The 15.6-inch with touchscreen is now $159. Yeah, at Good Guys Harbin, great value.

[00:37:25] Stephen Fenech: Crazy. And the touchscreen is especially if you’re using like a Mac, you know, if you, if you don’t normally have a touchscreen interface, it can be a real game changer for some of those customers. But it is, as I said, a really great way to enjoy your content, whether you want to watch, you know, you want— if you want to do like when we bring them on our trips here, like I use it as a second screen so I can easily have my emails on one browser, on the other when I’m writing on another one.

[00:37:53] Trevor Long: So I’d definitely set it up if I had a bigger desk.

[00:37:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you’ll fit it on there, mate. Don’t dry your eyes, will ya? But now I’ve got mine set up. My desk is the same, same size as yours, mate. It’s set up perfectly. And, uh, I brought the 17-inch one.

[00:38:09] Trevor Long: I’ve got the one you’ve broken 3 times.

[00:38:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, is that right?

[00:38:14] Trevor Long: The light doesn’t bust it for you? No, look, it’s in a Pelican case.

[00:38:18] Stephen Fenech: Oh man, I had it in, in a, in a backpack and it was like— and I actually had it in a roller bag. You know, whenever I check a bag, you know, I have that roller bag. It was safe in there, pulled it out, broke.

[00:38:27] Trevor Long: Have you seen how baggage handlers treat luggage?

[00:38:29] Stephen Fenech: They did That was my carry-on bag. It was in my carry-on bag.

[00:38:32] Trevor Long: Have you seen how you treat your luggage? I treat it with— not according to Nick and the team at Espresso.

[00:38:38] Stephen Fenech: Well, I’ve returned 2 and didn’t get a return, didn’t get another one sent out to me. They think we’re cutting him off, this bludger.

[00:38:46] Trevor Long: They’ve just gone, you know what, we’re cutting him off. Yeah, 3 is the limit.

[00:38:49] Stephen Fenech: Shout out, Nick. Good on you, mate. I’m still waiting for my replacement screen.

[00:38:52] Trevor Long: Oh, but you’ve got the 17-inch.

[00:38:56] Stephen Fenech: 17-inch I’ve been using here, but it’s a bit bigger than the other.

[00:38:59] Trevor Long: But look, there’s so many. I think I’ve got 4 different brands of these kind of screens in the office. And look, you know, I think there is something to say for the quality and the performance of the Espresso. But for just simple, I want an extra screen. One of the great places for this is still professional. And it’s when you’re, you’re called to do a boardroom presentation, you know, like you’re trying to— you’re a salesperson. And you’re trying to sell something, you sit with your laptop looking at you, you plug the screen in, you turn it around, you just duplicate your screen. And the other people sitting across from you can see what you’re talking about.

[00:39:30] Stephen Fenech: See exactly what you’re seeing.

[00:39:31] Trevor Long: Such a simple thing to do.

[00:39:32] Stephen Fenech: And I think it’s one of those products that once you use it, you can’t not use it. It’s one of those things you think, this is amazing. You can’t, like I can’t travel without it now. I’ve always got it whenever I travel. So I think once you get the taste for it, And thankfully laser gives you really affordable access to one of these products now. Then I think there’s no going back. Yeah, no turning back.

[00:39:54] Trevor Long: Yeah. And they’re easy. They’re easy to obtain because they’re good guys. Harvey Norman, Bingley. I think the good guys— no, the good guys don’t have all— no one. Harvey Norman has all 3 different models. That’s the only one that has all 3. But, but yeah, great, great products. Simple, easy to use and well worth a look. And if you’re in the market You can read it, read more and see photos at eftm.com and techguide.com.au.

[00:40:18] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

Sponsor — Arlo home security cameras

[00:40:23] Stephen Fenech: Two Blokes Talking Tech, proudly brought to you by Arlo. Arlo is our great friend on the road as well. I really— I’ve got all my cameras set up so you can buy your regular cameras, your doorbell floodlight cameras. And the beauty of all of them is when they’re connected, they all connect back to the app. And you can control them, see all the different footage. Like whenever I travel, I’m always checking the feed. If say I was expecting a delivery, I could see exactly when it came and I’ll text my wife saying, look, I’ve got a delivery, can you just bring it in?

[00:40:55] Trevor Long: Or whatever. Amanda asked Harry last night, are you okay? He was at home on his own for about an hour. And has a delivery arrived? No. And then I got an Arlo doorbell ring. I answered it, but I knew Harry was gonna answer the door, but I wanted to watch. Also I felt like he’s 14. He said, I’m alone, it’s good to see you. For me about to see who he’s talking to. And there was this big parcel under this lady’s arm. So I instantly texted, said parcels arrived. Yeah, that’s great.

[00:41:17] Stephen Fenech: And that’s the beauty of it too. You can just looking at your feed because it’s got AI. And when you subscribe to the Arlo Secure, which gives you up to 30 days of cloud storage, but also the smart notification. So it’ll say, oh, hang on, there’s a package there. Someone with the package has arrived. So in your case, you would have got that specific notification. Spot on. And there’s also personalized localization as well. So I can tell, not there’s a person there, I can tell that my wife’s there or my daughter’s there or someone’s there, that if we know them. Same thing with their cars as well. So yeah, if you, you want, look, this is, this gives us peace of mind. We travel a lot, so we’re able to see exactly what’s going on at home. I love it, I love it when Jo gives me the cheeky wave on the, on the, the doorbell when she knows.

[00:41:55] Trevor Long: I don’t get a wave, I normally get something different.

[00:41:57] Stephen Fenech: She knows that I check it and she normally gives me a little smile, little waves on the doorbell camera, which is lovely. Look, if you’re looking to get to start, if you want to be able to put it together, that’s it. If you’re looking to start off, get your system up and running, Arlo’s the place to go. They’ve got a great range and they’re on their website too. They’ve got a bundle and save option. So if you’re starting from scratch, you need to pull together a few cameras, then you can get a deal right there at arlo.com.

[00:42:28] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Steven Fenech.

Belkin Lilypad — Toy Story 5 iPad case

[00:42:34] Trevor Long: All right. If you’ve got little kids and they get to use the family iPad or they’ve got their own iPad, you need to instantly and urgently be checking out the Belkin website and Amazon because the Lilypad iPad case is launched in Australia. This thing sold out in 2 weeks at Walmart in America. Yeah, this is the one of the main characters of Toy Story 5, which is out in the next week. And basically Toy Story 5, from what I can broadly see of the promo, is about kind of about the tech, the use of technology, toys, all that kind of stuff. And so again, it’s probably Woody and Buzz getting jealous of that, and then there’s a bit of kickback. But this is— we’ve seen this in kind of preview modes at different, different events, and they showed it to us there. Velcro is super proud of this because it’s a huge— it’s a huge thing for them to have a partnership with Disney. Yeah, they’re the only company that’s been given the rights to to produce a Lily Pad iPad cover.

[00:43:31] Stephen Fenech: Like, big deal. So it’s Pixar and Disney. Yeah, so that’s a big deal. I hope Disney also do Star Wars. You reckon Bill can do some Star Wars?

[00:43:37] Trevor Long: I think they would definitely be in talks about anything now that they’re happy to be their consultant. I’m sure you would. Free. Yeah, yeah. Can you hold the microphone so it’s pointing up at your mouth?

[00:43:46] Stephen Fenech: I’m trying my best.

[00:43:47] Trevor Long: The other way around. Yeah, I’m trying my best. I don’t want to pop it too much, but it’s only, uh, it’s only like $70.

[00:43:53] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it’s cheap. I was surprised by that. $69.95. It suits the iPad 10th and 11th generations, like your entry-level iPad. So it’s—

[00:44:01] Trevor Long: but it’s more than just a, you know, robust case because it’s super robust, drop-proof and everything. But it’s got grip, it’s got grippy edges, it’s got a nice handle, and it’s got a little kickstand on the back.

[00:44:10] Stephen Fenech: I know, which is super easy to set it upright.

[00:44:14] Trevor Long: And once—

[00:44:14] Stephen Fenech: once— like, Toy Story isn’t in the cinemas yet, is it?

[00:44:16] Trevor Long: It comes out on June 30th. Yeah. Oh no, I think it’s sooner than that.

[00:44:20] Stephen Fenech: Okay, so once it hits cinemas, I think every kid’s gonna want one of these. Yeah, they love their iPads, but they’re gonna think, I want a case like that.

[00:44:27] Trevor Long: And just so you know, when you buy it, there’s a pamphlet in it with a QR code on it that allows you to download some exclusive wallpapers, which are essentially like from the, from the movie.

[00:44:37] Stephen Fenech: That’s lovely.

[00:44:38] Trevor Long: It’s very cool.

LEGO Smart Play — Pokémon range announced

[00:44:40] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Should we talk about some other kid— would you call it kid-related the Smart Play, the Lego?

[00:44:46] Trevor Long: Oh yeah, sure, kids love that, don’t they? Big kids, little kids, doesn’t matter.

[00:44:49] Stephen Fenech: We were, we were both, I think, in agreement that Lego, their Smart Play announcement at CES was probably one of the best parts of the show. Uh, and naturally they went with their best offerings, with the Star Wars sets, right? So we’ve seen Star Wars, but now they’re doing the same thing for their Pokémon range. I don’t know whether you’ve been to Pokémon or your No, not at all. Yeah, Pokémon’s massive. And so this is the second wave of SmartPlay products are now going to be Pokémon. We’re talking there’s like a dozen different, different sets, but they’re going to play it the same way as they did with Star Wars. So there’ll be a few key sets that come with the Smart Brick. That’s right. So you get the brick, you get the Smart Tile, you get the wireless charging pad. And then what they do, they release other smart sets. That don’t have the Smart Brick but are compatible with the, with the set, with the Smart Brick.

[00:45:45] Trevor Long: So they can interact with the minifigs would be, would have the Smart Play built in. It’s got the, got the little tiles and different things.

[00:45:51] Stephen Fenech: But it’s a real clever way of building in. Like, for example, if you bought, if you bought the Star Wars X-wing and the, and the Darth Vader, Darth Vader TIE fighter, they’ve each got a Smart Brick and they, they, they can play together very well.. But if you buy, say, the Millennium Falcon or the Scout Walker that don’t have the Smart Brick, but because they’ve got their own little smart tiles and smart minifigures, they can interact with it as well.

[00:46:16] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:46:16] Stephen Fenech: And we, we saw at CES that the lights and the movement is what makes it the play even better. And so now for Pokémon fans— and which kid isn’t a fan of Pokémon? Very popular among kids— this is the new LEGO Smart Play range which is being released.

[00:46:33] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:46:34] Stephen Fenech: So do you have a favorite Pokémon?

[00:46:35] Trevor Long: No, I have not. I’ve known nothing about it.

[00:46:37] Stephen Fenech: Do you know Pikachu?

[00:46:38] Trevor Long: That, you know, Pikachu. I’ve heard of Pikachu.

[00:46:40] Stephen Fenech: That’s one of them. Yeah, there’s Eevee and Jolteon.

[00:46:42] Trevor Long: So looking at prices, $129, $199. There’s a $34 one because that’s a compatible set. So there’s only 2 sets that are all in one. Correct. One of those $129 ones, $199.

[00:46:52] Stephen Fenech: And that’s what you get the Smart Brick with, the Smart Brick charger, Smart Minifigs, the Smart Tiles, and then the others.

[00:46:59] Trevor Long: Jigglypuff concept is just, uh, $24.99. I mean, that’s unbelievable. That’s a bargain. Who doesn’t love Jigglypuff?

[00:47:06] Stephen Fenech: Puff. But you know how massive Pokémon is?

[00:47:09] Trevor Long: I’m aware of the card situation.

[00:47:11] Stephen Fenech: It’s huge.

[00:47:12] Trevor Long: And, and of course the cards, I think, are stupid as it’s become the character. Most of your collections, but that’s okay, you’re the wealthy one. Yeah, I’m the idiot that has nothing.

[00:47:21] Stephen Fenech: Well, you know, if they do a Phantom one, I’ll tell you, I’ll buy that. I don’t think they will though.

[00:47:26] Trevor Long: No, I don’t think so.

[00:47:27] Stephen Fenech: So I mean, I’m all in with Star Wars, to be honest.

[00:47:29] Trevor Long: This is exciting. It’s good. It’s an expansion, but I’m waiting for the generic. I’m waiting for when you can just— yep. So there’ll be a time when you can walk into a LEGO display and there’ll be like a Smart Play backing in the shop, and there’ll be just the charger, there’ll be just a brick and a charger, there’ll be just a bunch of tiles, and they’ll be themed like LEGO City. Yeah, I think they’ll just be—

[00:47:49] Stephen Fenech: you put it with a car or a place.

[00:47:51] Trevor Long: In the packet will be a brick, a charger, a couple of minifigs like a police cop and a robber, and then a couple of tiles things that you can just build your own stuff.

[00:48:01] Stephen Fenech: Well, we saw— we kind of saw a preview of that, didn’t we? Yeah.

[00:48:04] Trevor Long: So, but we don’t imagine how they’re going to sell it, but I imagine they’ll just sell them as packs.

[00:48:08] Stephen Fenech: I don’t reckon that’s going to be their priority. I reckon that they’re going to want people to get into the sets. Like, imagine Harry Potter.

[00:48:13] Trevor Long: I think that’s stupid. I think what they want—

[00:48:16] Stephen Fenech: they want to draw people into the more expensive.

[00:48:17] Trevor Long: But if you really want to make LEGO Smart Play the future of LEGO play, yeah, then I need to be able to just play with my lego.

[00:48:25] Stephen Fenech: I guess so. You you’re saying, well, imagine you’ve already got it. So you’ve probably already got Harry Potter, you’ve already got Harry Potter sets and that.

[00:48:31] Trevor Long: You can forget any— forget anything generic. I’ve just got— we’ve just got a bag of Lego. Yeah, right. Boxes of Lego now. We got rid of the bag because it was just turning around.

[00:48:39] Stephen Fenech: Free play.

[00:48:39] Trevor Long: Free play. You should be able to build a helicopter. Yeah. And then put the brick in it and find the helicopter tile and put it in it so it acts like a helicopter.

[00:48:47] Stephen Fenech: I’d say that’s on the agenda, mate. I think it has to be on the agenda. But imagine, imagine Formula Yeah, Formula One cars or Harry Potter or Marvel.

[00:48:55] Trevor Long: Like, there’s so many they could license, you know, like Oscar’s very, very plain on the team radio. Like, he doesn’t really have emotion.

[00:49:04] Stephen Fenech: Well, they’re not going to have voices.

[00:49:06] Trevor Long: No, but they could make a kind of sound. Yeah, they could do heaps. They could make the— maybe they could make the radio sound, you know, stuff like that. It’ll say box, box. That’d be cool. I think it’s super exciting what they could do.

[00:49:20] Stephen Fenech: That’s what’s remarkable. And like we said, this was— it probably stole the show at CES. We’re talking biggest tech show in the world.

[00:49:28] Trevor Long: It’s been successful, but hasn’t it? I don’t know.

[00:49:31] Stephen Fenech: Well, mate, I see it everywhere. And I remember sitting— I went to Big W at Eastgardens near my place, and I remember watching this family looking at it. Guess I— hang on, this one’s got the Smart Brick, this one doesn’t. So what does that mean? And the kid explained it to them. They said, oh no, no, if you— if we play together with them, they’ll work. And they go, okay. And they end up buying them. And so the kids are educating the parents on them in this case. But no, from what I’ve seen, the displays are everywhere, there’s sets everywhere. And I think the curiosity factor is what got people in to try it out.

[00:50:07] Trevor Long: Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, if you’re into Pokémon and Lego and Star Wars, still available.

[00:50:12] Stephen Fenech: Available too.

[00:50:13] Trevor Long: Yeah, of course. Stephen’s just trying to sell you more Star Wars. Of course, man. You can check it out at techguide.com.au.

[00:50:18] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

Kmart Joy AI assistant — Wesfarmers’ AI shopping tool

[00:50:22] Trevor Long: Now I know you talked about this on the Tech Guide podcast, but for those of us that didn’t listen to that—

[00:50:26] Stephen Fenech: what, the 3 people who never listen?

[00:50:28] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’s 2. I think it’s only 2. Me and one other. Good one. Kmart launched an AI assistant. Now to be very clear, Kmart’s owned by Wesfarmers. Wesfarmers also Bunnings. Bunnings also has this, right? It’s called Buddy on Bunnings, but on Kmart it’s called Joy. It’s the same thing. You, you’re on their website up in the top right-hand corners there. On Bunnings it’s Buddy and on Kmart it’s Joy. Click on that button and you launch this AI agent and that allows you to go, I’ve got a kids’ party this weekend, give me decoration inspiration. It’ll just go through the catalog of Kmart items and give you ideas of what to buy. The other one I did was cleaning the kitchen. Give me kitchen storage ideas. Years. Boom! Just came up with all these little storage boxes I wouldn’t have known they found— they had. And I’ve been relaying it this week, Steven, like on the radio, saying when you go to Kmart physically, you either walk in to buy a thing and you know where it is, you go and buy the thing. Yeah. Or you walk in and go, I don’t know, what are we looking for here? You know, you are looking for kitchen storage solutions, but you ask them of yourself and you go wandering through.

[00:51:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:51:35] Trevor Long: Well, online, think about online shopping. Shopping. It’s actually very hard to wander, you know, it’s very hard to browse an online shop. So because often you, if you, if you find the right, you need to know what you’re looking for, you’ve got to know what category to go into. Is it on the lifestyle, homewares, kitchen? What’s it under, right?

[00:51:51] Stephen Fenech: That’s a good thing about this new thing.

[00:51:52] Trevor Long: And that’s what this Joy just goes, hey, here’s a bunch of ideas and you can back and forth with it to narrow down your ideas, whack them in the shopping cart and off you go.

[00:52:01] Stephen Fenech: Happy days. I like to, you can upload your photo and have like watch, see outfits on yourself.

[00:52:06] Trevor Long: I didn’t know you could do that.

[00:52:07] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s pretty cool. You can upload a picture and see an outfit.

[00:52:10] Trevor Long: I don’t want to do it.

[00:52:10] Stephen Fenech: And it also try to get you the right size. Like, you think about that.

[00:52:14] Trevor Long: I definitely don’t want Joy sizing me up. It’s bad enough at dinner someone telling me my hands look like an old man.

[00:52:20] Stephen Fenech: You can imagine though the amount of my hands look old. I don’t think so, mate. They look dainty.

[00:52:25] Trevor Long: I thought my hands look young.

[00:52:26] Stephen Fenech: You’ve got very dainty hands.

[00:52:27] Trevor Long: I thought they were the youngest part of me.

[00:52:29] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but, um, The, when you’re like, I like whenever I shop for like shoes and certain brands of clothes, I know my size. Of course I think, right, I’ll buy them. But often people don’t know their size and that’s, you think about how many returns there would have been online shopping for clothing. This is sort of the first step in getting it right the first time.

[00:52:50] Trevor Long: It’s like what we said about Amazon earlier with the returns thing. It’s like you want to minimize the, the number of those things. So if you you can get people to size it up.

[00:52:58] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but I think the fact you can ask it questions, I think one example I saw was like, I’m throwing my 10-year-old son a birthday party, what decorations should I get? Or I wanna buy a present for a young kid who loves Star Wars, what do you suggest? And boom, all of those. And also comparison shopping too. It really, I know you can do it already on some sites, but this really surfaces it up. So you say, right, I wanna buy an air fryer I need it to be this big and I want this. And then boom, all the options are there. You can see them all side by side, pricing, features. That’s gonna— that’s got to help too.

[00:53:31] Trevor Long: I like the idea. I think it’s really simple. I think it’s a good— I think it’s a good use of AI.

[00:53:35] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:53:36] Trevor Long: Do you know what I mean?

[00:53:37] Stephen Fenech: I think other stores are going to follow.

[00:53:38] Trevor Long: The difference between people— people yelling at their radio, headphones, whatever— the difference between this and just having search on your website is that when you search, you’ve got to search for what you want and have it come up. If you search for birthday decorations, you’re going to get hundreds of results in, in lists of 20 at a time, and the male and female, boy and girl ages are not relevant, whereas Joy is going to narrow it down for you.

[00:54:02] Stephen Fenech: Exactly.

[00:54:03] Trevor Long: Which is what you want.

[00:54:03] Stephen Fenech: What a joy. Great name. Smart name for it too.

[00:54:07] Trevor Long: Not bad.

[00:54:08] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I love that name.

[00:54:08] Trevor Long: I like Buddy for Bunnings as well. Buddy?

[00:54:10] Stephen Fenech: Oh, they’ve already got that.

[00:54:11] VOICE OVER: It’s already—

[00:54:11] Trevor Long: it’s exactly the same thing. Same thing. There you go. Yeah.

[00:54:13] Stephen Fenech: See, Bunnings got ahead of the curve there.

[00:54:15] Trevor Long: Well, as I said, you were texting, but as I said earlier, they’re owned by the same company, so it’s the same.

[00:54:20] Stephen Fenech: And so is Target. Is that right? Yeah, good.

[00:54:22] Trevor Long: Because Joy will surface whether an air fryer is available at Target or Kmart.

[00:54:25] Stephen Fenech: How good is that?

[00:54:26] Trevor Long: Bit of cross-pollination going on there between brands. That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s totally fair. Yeah, that’s totally fair.

[00:54:32] Stephen Fenech: Useful for the customer.

[00:54:33] Trevor Long: Anyway, you can read about Joy on techguide.com.au, on eftm.com. Stephen, you’ve got radio to do.

[00:54:40] Stephen Fenech: I do. Yeah, that’s why I was texting.

[00:54:42] Trevor Long: I know, I could tell, I could tell. I know what’s going on.

[00:54:45] Stephen Fenech: It’s getting close, mate, but we’ll be right. I said, look, I’ll text you when I’m ready.

[00:54:48] Trevor Long: Oh wow.

[00:54:49] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s the sort of pull I’ve got, mate. Well, it’s that or nothing though. That’s basically it. So, uh, I’ll tell him when I’m ready, which should be in a couple of minutes. It’s, it’s about the right time now anyway. I’m normally about 20 to 25 to, so we’ll We’re getting there.

[00:55:06] Trevor Long: Oh, okay. I thought it’s half past.

[00:55:08] Stephen Fenech: That’s what it is right now.

[00:55:10] Trevor Long: That’s what—

[00:55:11] Stephen Fenech: that’s the time. But I’m normally like 7:35, 7:38, something like that. So I should be right, mate.

[00:55:16] Trevor Long: You bought yourself—

[00:55:16] Stephen Fenech: if we wrap it up, if we wrap it up soon, I’ll be able to—

[00:55:18] Trevor Long: I’ve been trying to do for the last 30 seconds, right?

[00:55:21] Stephen Fenech: We can get— I can get moving.

[00:55:22] Trevor Long: That’s great.

[00:55:23] Stephen Fenech: I’ll get out of this minuscule room and go back to my luxurious suite. Absolutely.

[00:55:29] Trevor Long: Um, safe travel home, Stephen, and And we’ll talk remotely next week. Yes. And then we’ll be back in the studio the week after. You can— what’s the movie this week?

[00:55:38] Stephen Fenech: Dead Calm this week. Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill.

[00:55:42] Trevor Long: So I saw a TikTok of a guy and his wife or girlfriend on an inflatable in the ocean with their boat in the background. And he’s like, oh, there’s no wind. So we’re just mucking around. We can’t go anywhere. So we thought we’d just drift around on the inflatable. And I went to the comments. You know, there’s a movie about this and it’s not good.

[00:56:00] Stephen Fenech: It’s called Dead Calm. Yeah, directed by Philip Noyce.

[00:56:03] Trevor Long: Philip Noyce, cracking. Very young Nicole Kidman. So that’ll be on your podcast feed.

[00:56:07] Stephen Fenech: See if Trevor likes it or not.

[00:56:09] Trevor Long: I can’t even remember.

[00:56:11] Stephen Fenech: I think, yeah, from memory you didn’t mind it. Okay, you got to tune in to see your score.

[00:56:17] Trevor Long: Watch Dead Calm and then download the podcast and have a listen and enjoy it. That’s great. Great. With us. All right, mate. See you when we’re back.

[00:56:24] Stephen Fenech: Take care. Bye-bye.

[00:56:25] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Steven Fenech.